361. Deputy Ryan O'Meara asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the guidelines available to planners within local authorities to assess the impact of a high concentration of renewable energy infrastructure within a rural area; and the extent to which the landscape and local community are taken into consideration. [67096/26]

370. Deputy Ryan O'Meara asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the measures in place to assess the impact of a high concentration of renewable energy infrastructure within a rural area; the person or body responsible for carrying out that assessment; and the extent to which the landscape and local community are taken into consideration. [67094/26]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 361 and 370 together.

Assessing cumulative impacts is an important feature of environmental impact assessment. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the process of examining the anticipated environmental effects of a proposed project. It commences with consideration of environmental effects at design stage, through consultation and preparation of an Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR), evaluation of the EIAR by a competent authority and the subsequent decision as to whether the project should be permitted to proceed. Under European and national legislation a project must consider cumulative effects as part of an EIAR and they are defined as the interaction between various impacts within a single project and the interaction between all of the different existing and/or approved projects in an area.

This would be most relevant to applications for a wind energy development, which when subject to environmental assessment are therefore subject to an assessment of cumulative effects. An environmental impact assessment report (EIAR) is always required when a proposed wind energy development has a total output of more than five megawatts or contains more than five turbines. However, it is not necessarily the case that a smaller project or projects, referred to as "sub-threshold", would not be environmentally assessed. The relevant planning authority must determine if the proposed sub threshold project is likely to have a significant impact on the environment. As part of this process, known as screening, the cumulative impact of the proposed development with other existing or proposed projects is considered when establishing if a full environmental impact assessment is required.

Furthermore, public participation is a long established and key element of most decision-making processes under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (Act of 2000) and this will continue to be the position under the Planning and Development Act 2024 (Act of 2024). From a spatial planning perspective, as part of the process to review city and county development plans, it is open to members of the public to make an observation or submission on the draft development plan. The development plan sets out land use zoning objectives and outlines the types of potential development, including ancillary developments, which might be suitable for a particular area, and may include objectives for solar energy development.

In addition, it is open to any member of the public to make an observation or submission on a planning application, including in relation to solar energy developments, and the planning authority is statutorily obliged to consider such submissions before making a decision on the application. Persons who make submissions are also entitled to be notified of any significant further information provided to the planning authority by the applicant and to be notified of the authority’s decision on the application.